User: mellifluous

Not a Laughing Matter

On: Can the BSA Investigate Your office for Piracy?

Having worked in an office under BSA investigation once, I can attest that it is no laughing matter. Of course they can't come in and search or seize without due legal process, but the BSA has a massive weight of legal expertise and past precedent behind them.

It is generally a lot less painful to deal openly and correct any action swiftly than to risk the kind of action that could be taken. Closing the door on the BSA is likely to increase expenses over the matter by an order of magnitude in the cases I have seen.

Re:Voting System

On: The Politics Guillotine Descends

Yes, I agree with what you are saying. But the reason I made my original comment is that it is up to the states to decide how they want their electors to be nominated. We can see that this flexibility has allowed the states to evolve the election process from one which assumed, as AntiNorm mentioned, that voters might not be able to make an informed decision due to geographic differences, to a more directly popular vote. Some early elections did not even consider the popular vote, and the electoral college was nominated directly by state legislature. By saying that we need to attack this within its rightful context, I mean that it is possible within the existing framework for states to decide how they want to choose their electors.

I was also referring, in part, the the provision for a minimum of 2 electoral college votes per state regardless of population, but that is secondary to this discussion.

Re:Why no corporate money for Libertarian Party?

On: Technology Issues by Candidate

Precisely. In particular, some aspects of the Libertarian platform are seen by many as socially irresponsible (i.e. legalizing drugs), and it could easily tarnish a company's image to be associated with an unpopular platform. Whether you agree with it or not, you have to admit that from a marketing standpoint, many companies would be devastated if they became associated with some of these positions.

Re:Voting System

On: The Politics Guillotine Descends

This is, admittedly, an interesting discussion of voting systems, but it doesn't get to the heart of the matter of why to choose one system over another. It will always be possible to play games with voting/polling systems to make a small margin tip one way or the other. Many voting systems can even lead to seemingly paradoxical results (e.g. when paired off, A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A).

The American electoral college system was established because of the unique balance of power created between state and individual representation. If people want to change it, they should attack it within its rightful context, rather than playing numbers games with possible outcomes.

Value in Archiving

On: IDSA Goes After Abandonware

Abandonware is actually good business sense.

Once a title is no longer generating any sales revenue for the owners, it is actually to their benefit to allow it to be archived and publicly available. By making the software more accessible, the older property can stay fresher in public awareness, thus paving the way for sequels and other exploitation of the original names and concepts.

That's where any ongoing revenue is going to be found.